Anti-trust

What about the example of Standard Oil. According to this self-correcting theory, when Standard oil controlled the the marketplace at the turn of the century, upstart competitors should have entered to break this virtual monopoly. Standard had so much power in the martketplace that it could squash, buy out, and destroy any legitimate competition that might have sprung up. Only when Anti-trust laws (regulations!) passed was the monopoly broken such that the market could assert itself. The private sector could not self correct. Is this site opposed to anti-trust laws?

More importantly is the human toll. I would imagine this site would think that Lehman should have been allowed to fail, along with AIG and all the others without any help from government. According to this theory, future calamities could be avoided because people would fear for their firms. But along the way, millions of people would experience a drastic decline in their quality of life. These are real people losing their homes, jobs, healthcare, and savings. If the government can intercede to avoid such calamities, it must. And if it must intervene, it must do what it can to avoid having to intervene in the future, which means breaking up big banks and creating a system that cannot socialize risk, and privatize reward.

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The Future of Capitalism replies:

I don't know much about Standard Oil but on Lehman, not sure what your argument is? Lehman should have been rescued? Problem is, we spend lots of money on regulators and create lots of red tape and all it does is provide a false sense of security. Lehman failed within a system that actually featured lots of regulation. You can't have capitalism without allowing failure.